, "a more internal, more complex relation with what one calls force, power or vio

1. lence" (Derrida 941). In an o
   verdetermi   
   
   
2. ned (gross) ritual invocation of the "sacred" source of
3. imperial expansion, the Requerimiento literally and figuratively rere
4. ads, reads to, and writes a new place. New Mexico, in this foundi
   ng gesture. This writerly performance does not cere
5. monially seal the victories of warfare: it enacts and initiates the founding violence of conquest itself.
6. Conquest Imitation The story of the conquest of New Mexico is not on

e of origins or providential beginnings; it is, rather, the story of the decadence of the S

panish conquest imagination, a markedly baroque conquest in the twilight of the S